


to paradise with pleasure haunted

by Mia_Zeklos



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Banned Together Bingo, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Illegal Activities, OR ARE THEY (spoiler: obviously they are not), One Night Stands, Threesome - F/M/M, Unmarried Characters (Or More), because obviously that is the most scandalous thing about this situation, eventually that is, it's a triad but also each relationship is gonna get its own spotlight for a chapter, more specifically for the prompt, so they all get a tag so that it can be fair, some mild violence because Cara is Cara, tagged and credited in order of appearance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:26:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28180872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mia_Zeklos/pseuds/Mia_Zeklos
Summary: Now that the voice outside Cara's door is more agitated – and, regrettably, even louder – a suspicion starts to creep in, hand in hand with reluctant awareness. Cobb hadn’t been able to match it up to a face because there had never been a face—(While on Nevarro, Cobb Vanth meets the local Marshall. After a lovely night with a stranger, Cara Dune helps out an old friend. Din Djarin experiences more reunions than can be good for anyone in a criminally short timespan. Somehow, they make it work.)
Relationships: Cara Dune/Cobb Vanth, Din Djarin/Cara Dune, Din Djarin/Cara Dune/Cobb Vanth, Din Djarin/Cobb Vanth
Comments: 8
Kudos: 52





	to paradise with pleasure haunted

**Author's Note:**

> This whole entire chapter has been marinating in my drafts for a good half a season while I was trying to figure out how to do the POV switches I'm going to need for it and I have finally caved and accepted that it can't possibly happen while also being a one-shot, so it's a three-shot now; one for each character POV, hopefully. Make no mistake: this is mostly an excuse to write self-indulgent smut.  
> Title taken from [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EKgcVSX4ss). Also serves as a fill for a Banned Together Bingo square, with the prompt _Unmarried Couple (Or More)_. Clearly, I opted for more.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy it and, as usual, feedback is most welcome!

Losing money had never looked this good before.

In Cobb’s defence, it had _felt_ like a good bet at first. The woman had looked strong and beyond capable of handling herself, but her opponent is about twice her size in every imaginable direction, from a species he doesn’t recognise, and seems to be entirely made of several rocks glued together. _She’s ambitious,_ he’d thought, _but there’s no way._

There, apparently, _is_ a way.

He watches, half in dismay and half in awe, as she laughs loud enough for him to hear it from the audience, and quickly jumps out of the way when her opponent charges at her, enraged. She’s playing him as easily as she’s playing their onlookers – even from a distance, Cobb can see the dangerous gleam in her eyes; the way she’s baiting a reaction of them all, beckoning the other fighter to do his worst as if the thought of it actually happening doesn’t faze her in the slightest.

She’s having _fun_ , he realises, and it’s what’s winning her this fight – the outrage is just what she needs to overcome him. Anger makes people, regardless of their species, clumsy, and it’s not long before the mountain of a man he’d bet on _slips_.

“Do you surrender?” Her voice rings out firm and clear over the cheering and screaming in the room. Nevarro is a strange planet, he had found so far, with all sorts of species inhabiting it, and it’s a patched-up mess of a place even when compared to Tatooine, so he can’t be sure, but she seems to be all human from here; the fact that she can topple an opponent this size with just her bare hands and still speak is more impressive than he’d like to admit, considering that his money had gone elsewhere.

“You nasty little—”

“I _said_ , do you surrender?” The whip that connects them, still crackling furiously, tightens a little bit around the big guy’s leg as she drops him on the chalk. Cobb winces as her grip grows firmer – protective gloves or not, this must hurt, but she doesn’t flinch while his champion wheezes.

“Yes! Yes!” He struggles to reach under his own body for the power button at his waist, roaring as the whip digs into his skin with a sickening dragging noise. “I surrender!”

“That’s more like it.” She hops away from him, her grin so wide that it shines around the arena despite the overwhelming reaction – as mixed as it is loud – from their onlookers, and heads directly for Cobb’s half of the room, where the crowd that had bet on her opponent is seated. It’s a fairly simple arrangement – the winning fighters split the money from the victory in half, but it’s up to her to collect _her_ half from people and she does so without further ado, paying special attention to anyone who ends up being unexpectedly generous. Without fully meaning to, Cobb withdraws further to the back as the audience thins around him, waiting them all out until they’re essentially the only ones left.

“Go on,” she holds her hand out impatiently and there’s something so casual and shameless about it that he can’t help but be thrilled by the irregularity that she is. She’s _enchanting_ , her small, sturdy body somehow still buzzing with unreleased energy even though she’s still covered in sweat from the most recent extortion. There’s not an ounce of modesty about her and it doesn’t really seem to be a local trait; people-wise, Nevarro and Tatooine are quite similar. It must just be her. “Don’t be shy.”

“Not at all.” He fishes through his pockets for the credits he’d had prepared ever since he’d realised that he wasn’t going to win this wager. It’s a generous amount – more than had been agreed upon, in any case – and her eyebrows go up in delighted surprise. “It’s like you were determined to rob me blind.”

“Oh, I was! My day job doesn’t pay half as good, even if it still involves me getting punched in the face,” she says cheerily. He almost asks before he spots the stylised flame of the Rebellion branded high on her cheek – _law enforcement, likely._ “I hope the show was worth it.”

She’s equally unapologetic now as she nods her gratitude and picks up her jacket from a small changing room strategically placed behind a curtain. She’d been impressive even from afar, but up close, she’s _stunning_ ; the dark hair thrown over one shoulder glistening under the dim lights, her combat gear hugging the lush curves of her body like a glove even once she throws the leather jacket over it. Her smile is almost sweet, and her eyes would have been, too, if it hadn’t been the impression of mischief shining out from under the pretence of indifference. The kind of eyes that seem to talk dirty even when her mouth isn’t.

“I’m Cara,” she says, smile growing even wider and more dazzling. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Cobb,” he introduces himself in turn. _Cara_. He’d heard that name before, recently, in an entirely different context from a conversation he hadn’t been part of, and wonders briefly if it’s something about it that makes its owners so captivating. “The pleasure is all mine.” She’d been rather friendly so far, so he might as well take the next step. “I’m staying on Nevarro for the night. I’m here on business, but—I was looking for someone to show me my way around the local entertainment.”

Her face lights up with precisely the sort of enthusiasm he’d been hoping for and, as Cara makes her way towards the exit, he follows without an ounce of hesitation.

“To tell you the truth, I’m new here too.” The way she looks at him is nothing but liquid heat. “But I always know where the fun is.”

~.~

When the slip into her home, several hours and many drinks later, Cobb is far less drunk than he’d expected to be – which, he suspects, is the main reason he’s in her home. Cara is about as coordinated as she’d been during the fight, the suggestive edge to the way she’s eyeing him only growing bolder, and by the time he’d casually let it slip that he hadn’t managed to arrange a stay in any of the nearby accommodations, they’d been half across the way to her place anyway.

“Be my guest.” She waves him in with a grand gesture of her arm, as if they’re entering a palace and not a standard issue flat usually given to military members when they go to serve away from their home worlds. “Not much of a tour to give. Bedroom’s that way.”

She’d pointed him towards the only other room within sight already, but Cobb’s attention wanders to the table in what has to be her living room – and, more specifically, the badge tossed carelessly among the rest of the minimal clutter. He’d recognise the meaning anywhere, even if he had never been issued one himself.

“Marshall of the New Republic?” He can’t help the laugh that escapes him, smile widening further at the horror that suddenly overtakes the smoky air of seduction radiating off of her. “What are the odds?”

“You too?” He has to give her credit where it’s due – the panic he can see brimming under the surface is still far less noticeable than it would be on anyone else. “ _Ah_. The fighting is purely recreational, as you probably know—”

“Just Marshall; not much to do with the New Republic.” He has no desire to play cat and mouse with her – not in the way this line of thought would provide. It’s much easier to put her out of her misery and hook an arm around her waist instead, drinking in the small gasp that the action brings out of her. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing wrong with a little fun on the side, soldier.”

“You’re right about that.” She’s gone deliciously breathless and when her eyes stray to the closed door she’d pointed to before again, he doesn’t wait for a second invitation. _The bedroom it is._

~.~

They’re out of their clothes in record time, but Cobb doesn’t get long to enjoy it – as soon as his new friend had tossed the top of her armour in the floor’s general direction, she’d climbed up after him on the bed, commandeering, “Lie down,” before he’d had the chance to say a word.

“So that’s how it’s going to be?” The words don’t hold much weight given the way he immediately sprawls out over her covers to watch her sit herself on his thighs with no preamble whatsoever. There’s something urgent about her that feeds directly into the frantic rhythm that his own life operates on and it’s captivating; how quickly they’d clicked together for virtual strangers. “Should’ve known after that fight that you’d prefer— Oh _fuck_ , that feels good.” She’d positioned herself over him, one hand braced on his shoulder, and had sank down on his length in one smooth thrust. The grin he gets in return is _filthy_ and it makes him twitch inside her – it _does_ feel good, and she fits him like a glove, just as warm and tight and inviting as he’d expected – which, in turn, makes her eyelids flutter shut at the sensation. “That’s it,” he spurs her on when she starts moving, his hands curling around her waist to help set the pace, no matter how clearly determined she is to take control of the situation. She doesn’t seem to need any encouragement, but she _does_ like the talking, if the way she picks up her speed is anything to go by. “That’s it, Cara, that’s good—”

The name – entirely unrelated, he’s sure, but the fantasy slips in uninvited anyway – had sounded just as reverent the last time he’d heard it, on a mouth that had sounded just as inviting as hers does right about now. _Cara was with us the last time around, kid_ , his far more reserved, if just as recently made, friend had said, and this is so, _so_ inappropriate given that it had been a conversation he’d eavesdropped on, but it’s the same damn name and _oh_ , what he wouldn’t give to have them both here right now, as the images overlay one on top of the other, _yeah, Cara would have known what to do_. He had been stupidly jealous – with no right whatsoever to feel that way – back then in the Tatooine desert, with everyone’s lives on the line in front of a threat he’d been trying to battle for years – but now, he almost understands. If Mando’s Cara is anything like this, he _gets_ it.

“Yeah?” She asks, clearly more than aware of the effect she has. It’s cocky and self-assured and it really is a curse; this habit of his to be enchanted by people quite so easily. She leans down to kiss him, hand moving away from him so that she can prop her elbow against the bed, hair falling over his shoulder like a curtain. It’s fine – there’s nothing else he wants to see but her anyway. Her breasts press against his chest and his hands’s grip around her waist tightens until he can flip them over and he can look down at her in the faint streetlight coming through the windows, still a little awed – she’s golden and nearly gleaming as she arches up into him, her body flush against him like an offering from the gods. He bends down so that he can let his lips roam down her neck and over her chest and groans when one of her hands clutches him in place by the hair, digging in to the point of the most delicious pain he’s ever felt. It’s rough and hasty and Cobb muffles his moans into her skin as one of her thighs wraps around his waist, pulling them impossibly closer together until every thrust feels like _heaven_.

“Cara,” he repeats again, though what more is it that he wants from her, he’s not entirely clear on. Mostly, he just wants to taste it – _her_ – on his tongue, and it’s all the more delicious when she laughs in response, delight ringing out in her voice so clearly that it only serves to encourage him further. “Cara, Cara—”

~.~

“Cara?”

His head doesn’t hurt as much as he had expected it would, Cobb notes as soon as he wakes, but it’s still criminally early – his eyes sting with the sleep deprivation that the consistent banging on the door of his host’s flat had imposed upon him.

Speaking of whom...

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He rolls to the other side and watches her, still dazed, as she kicks the covers away and pats the bed blindly, presumably in search of clothes. It’s a pleasant image to wake up to – more than – and that insufferable, loveable smirk is back when she sees him staring, right before she frowns at the continued commotion outside. “What now?”

“Cara, are you here?” The voice on the other side of the door sounds vaguely familiar, but it’s going to take a little while longer for his brain to catch up with the source, Cobb thinks; there’s something unmistakable about the controlled, anxious urgency in it that he can’t quite match with a face just yet. “Karga says you never checked in last night.” There’s a moment of contemplative silence and he watches as Cara’s eyes widen in clear terror – whoever their apparently mutual acquaintance is, she had already put two and two together. “I came for information, but— it’s all right if it’s a bad time. Just— is everything okay?”

It is not, as it seems. Cara gives up on looking for her uniform entirely and slips into something that, with a little bravery, might be called sleepwear, consisting of a tank top and perilously short shorts. It’s difficult to tell whether she’s getting ready to welcome in a friendly face or use herself as the element of surprise, but even that line of thought dies a quick death as the banging on the door increases at the signs of life coming from the inside as Cara wanders through the other room and towards the entrance. Cobb squeezes his eyes shut in an aimless effort at falling asleep again, the noise feeling like daggers directly to his skull. How _early_ is it, honestly? Given how uncharacteristically irritated his bedmate seems to be, they couldn’t have slept more than an hour or so. “He said he hasn’t seen you in two days—”

Now that the voice is more agitated – and, regrettably, even louder – a suspicion starts to creep in, hand in hand with reluctant awareness. He hadn’t been able to match it up to a face because there had never _been_ a face—

“I took a fucking day off for once. That a crime now?” Cara mutters, likely not loud enough to be heard outside, but Cobb still winces. _Better hold that tongue in front of the kid_.

Oh.

_The kid?_

By the time she’s kicked the bedroom door shut while opening the one shielding her from the outside world, her voice is sweeter than sunlight again. “Hello again, Mando.”


End file.
